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Flawless Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital

Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital

By Elise Hu

"An audacious journalistic exploration of the present and future of beauty through the lens of South Korea's booming "K-beauty" industry and the culture it promotes"--

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Book Information

Publisher: Dutton
Publish Date: 05/23/2023
Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 9780593184189
ISBN-10: 0593184181
Language: Eng

What We're Saying

January 26, 2024

These are the books selected for the 2023 Big Ideas & New Perspectives category, curated by Porchlight's Managing Editor Jasmine Gonzalez. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

January 25, 2024

A cutting-edge journalistic exposé of self-care consumerism, using the extreme case South Korea to both celebrate the astounding growth of K-Beauty and South Korean pop culture as a global export and examine the dark implications for women in a looks-obsessed patriarchy, in a debut that asks the question: What is the future of beauty? READ FULL DESCRIPTION

November 30, 2023

These 40 books spoke to us—and we believe speak to each other—in a way that furthers the conversations we need to have in the organizations we work in, the communities we live in, and the societies that shape us. With them as a guide, we can make decisions that better shape each, in turn. READ FULL DESCRIPTION

Full Description

One of Porchlight's Business Books of the Year One of Vox's Best Books of 2023 An NPR Book of the Day Required Reading from New York Post One of Nylon's 13 May Books to Add to Your Reading List One of PureWow's 14 Books to Read for AAPI Heritage Month One of W Magazine's 14 Books to Dive Into This Summer One of Betches' Best Summer Reads of 2023 An audacious journalistic exploration of the present and future of beauty through the lens of South Korea's booming "K-beauty" industry and the culture it promotes, by Elise Hu, NPR host-at-large and the host of TED Talks Daily K-beauty has captured imaginations worldwide by promising a kind of mesmerizing perfection. Its skincare and makeup products--creams packaged to look like milkshakes or pandas, and snail mucus face masks, to name a few--work together to fascinate us, champion consumerism, and invite us to indulge. In the four years Elise spent in Seoul as NPR's bureau chief, the global K-beauty industry quadrupled. Today it's worth $10 billion and is only getting bigger as it rides the Hallyu wave around the globe. And fun as self-care consumerism may be, Elise turns her veteran eye to the darker questions lurking beneath the surface of this story. When technology makes it easy to quantify and optimize ourselves--from banishing blemishes, to whittling our waistlines, even to shaving down our jaws--where do we draw the line? What are the dangers for a society where a flawless face and body are promoted and possible? What are the real financial, physical, and emotional costs of beauty work in a culture that valorizes endless self-improvement and codes it as empowerment? With rich historical context and deep reporting, including hours of interviews with South Korean women, this is a complex, provocative look at the ways hustle culture has reached into the sinews of our bodies. It raises complicated questions about gender disparity, consumerism, the beauty imperative of an appearance obsessed society, and the undeniable political, economic, and social capital of good looks worldwide. And it points the way toward an alternative vision, one that's more affirming and inclusive than a beauty culture led by industry.

About the Author

Elise Hu is a correspondent and host-at-large for NPR, the American news network, and since April 2020, the inaugural host of TED Talks Daily , the daily podcast from TED that's downloaded a million times a day in all countries of the world.

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